Consumer Reports: Latest Autopilot “far less competent than a human”

What's even more fun is the passing laws vary from state to state. In most states in the south, for example, there's no law against passing on the right and no duty to yield the left lane unless faster traffic is approaching ("slower traffic keep right"). Head north, and both maneuvers are illegal ("keep right except to pass"). And while most states enforce these laws only on limited access, divided highways, I was stopped in at least one for failure to keep right on a non-divided 5-lane surface road.

Not only is the technology going to have to get better, the car is going to have to become more aware of state law.

Well, as a Georgian, I can say that we have a slowpoke law that makes it a ticketable offense to obstruct faster traffic, although I don't think I've ever heard of it being enforced. And I've always been taught that passing on the right is not technically legal and try to avoid it when I can.

Confirms what most people more or less thought. But making a big deal out of passing in the right lane in CT? Cmon. A very large percentage of human drivers would do the same, and a very very low percentage of police would pull someone over for that.

Driver in CT here--when you see someone breaking this law, guaranteed there is some slowpoke doing 55pmh in the left lane. Sometimes passing on the right is the only option to maintain a reasonable flow of traffic. This law is archaic and never enforced anyway.

The quality of your comment depends on what the posted speed limit there is.

#1. I like Tech#2. I like Tesla's concepts#3. I wish for Tesla to succeed...#4. I already wrote many time, current tech is NOT ready for Full driver-less.#5. Just because, some people call me names, it will Not change much.#6. I think, driver-less cars is possible, but... a. Careful with word "Full" b. It will take time ... and sorry, it will take MORE time c. Will need a GOOD SQA team d. Have to start s-l-o-w ... NOT on Freeway, 65mph !!! ... and time ... and money ... and more timep.s. but .. [I think] .. it is possible!

No passing on the right laws need updated to reflect reality. Instead of it being considered bad to pass on the right, it should be that if you are passed on the right by a driver obeying all other traffic regulations, you are subject to ticketing. No one driving correctly gets passed on the right by vehicles obeying all other traffic regulations.

Do you actually drive?

I was passed on the right just this morning while doing a bit over 70 mph on a 70 mph freeway, two lanes wide open on my right, by some law-abiding, quality driver doing at least 85. This is an extremely common occurrence; to be generous, it seems that a large portion of drivers simply don't know there are right and wrong sides to pass on.

That raises the question of why were you in the left lane? It doesn't sound like you were passing since as you say the right two lanes were "wide open". I don't think you were preparing for a left turn since as you say this was on a freeway. Most if not all states require drivers to keep to the right except for those two circumstances. If you find getting passed on the right is a "common" occurrence then perhaps you should brush up on your driving skills and stop hanging out in the left lane illegally?

No passing on the right laws need updated to reflect reality. Instead of it being considered bad to pass on the right, it should be that if you are passed on the right by a driver obeying all other traffic regulations, you are subject to ticketing. No one driving correctly gets passed on the right by vehicles obeying all other traffic regulations.

My observation on left lane laggards is about 5% of drivers know the rules but don't always follow them, about 1% either have no clue or just don't give a crap, Those small numbers can back up a lot of others and cause all kinds of congestion and safety problems.

We are too nice to those folks. Give them a chance, but don't be afraid to flash your lights and honk your horns.

No one should be surprised that Musk & Co. is under-delivering on his promise of autonomous vehicle operation. Tesla has consistently missed his many optimistic predictions.

The important thing to note is that he has subtlety shifted his promotion of Tesla from selling millions of cars to deploying a fleet of driverless taxis as the reason for a huge future valuation of TSLA.

The former is seriously in doubt. CR has cast aspersions on the latter within a timeframe to save his company.

No passing on the right laws need updated to reflect reality. Instead of it being considered bad to pass on the right, it should be that if you are passed on the right by a driver obeying all other traffic regulations, you are subject to ticketing. No one driving correctly gets passed on the right by vehicles obeying all other traffic regulations.

Do you actually drive?

I was passed on the right just this morning while doing a bit over 70 mph on a 70 mph freeway, two lanes wide open on my right, by some law-abiding, quality driver doing at least 85. This is an extremely common occurrence; to be generous, it seems that a large portion of drivers simply don't know there are right and wrong sides to pass on.

In Britain, passing on the correct side (the left, here in the US) is called "overtaking," while passing on the other side (the right) is known, hilariously and not wrongly, as "undertaking."

Were you just cruising in the left lane while the two right lanes were wide open?

No passing on the right laws need updated to reflect reality. Instead of it being considered bad to pass on the right, it should be that if you are passed on the right by a driver obeying all other traffic regulations, you are subject to ticketing. No one driving correctly gets passed on the right by vehicles obeying all other traffic regulations.

Do you actually drive?

I was passed on the right just this morning while doing a bit over 70 mph on a 70 mph freeway, two lanes wide open on my right, by some law-abiding, quality driver doing at least 85. This is an extremely common occurrence; to be generous, it seems that a large portion of drivers simply don't know there are right and wrong sides to pass on.

In Britain, passing on the correct side (the left, here in the US) is called "overtaking," while passing on the other side (the right) is known, hilariously and not wrongly, as "undertaking."

If right lanes are clear, then you should be in them, particularly if you are only going the posted speed limit. If people are passing you in wide open lanes to the right, that should be a pretty obvious clue.

I test-drove a Model S in heavy traffic and experienced all of this. I honestly found autopilot to be extremely stressful to use. Granted I only had about 45 minutes behind the wheel, but it was not a pleasant 45 minutes. Even the part that I'd consider "easy", lane-centering, was accomplished through constant micro-corrections that were far less smooth than if I'd been centering the car myself.

I'm sympathetic to the problem they're facing, by the way. There are an extremely large number of constantly changing data, and humans can rely on their own intuition. I've never believed the "truck drivers will be obsolete in 5 years" baloney, and this is exactly why. Driving laws are subtle and different between every state. Lane markings are unpredictable and sometimes non-existent. Absent laws that are designed specifically around autonomous driving and a huge public works project to make highways autonomous driving friendly (which needn't necessarily be lane markings), I just don't see this happening.

I worry that the desire to have "autopilot" in other cars will stifle innovation in the EV market. A new car manufacturer (Rivian, whatever) should be content with building an EV that drives well without spending resources on "autopilot"-like capabilities. It's an extremely hard problem, let Google or another company with unlimited resources tackle it.

Who needs Autopilot to cut someone off? If I don't have at least half a dozen oafs do it during rush hour, I consider it a minor miracle. One could argue that they are making Autopilot more human. What's next, Road Rage mode?

Not sure why the downvotes. This auto-cut off must have been seen as a feature by many Tesla drivers around Bay Area. They are second only to BMWs when it comes to driving in douche mode.

" The vehicle also failed to move back over to the right lane after completing a pass as required by state law, CR reports."

It's perfect!

I have a hard time seeing this going down well in Germany (well, anywhere for that matter, but in particular Germany) when someone's coming up its rear at 250 km/h, and Autopilot doesn't respond to high beam flashing to get out of the way.

Another challenge Tesla will face as it rolls out more sophisticated capabilities is laws that vary by country, state, or even municipality.

This is definitely true. When I moved from Texas to Oregon, I found out that the U-Turn laws are almost completely opposite (you can't U-Turn at a light in Oregon unless explicitly permitted; Texas being the opposite). That's just a single rule for a relatively common maneuver. Getting down every single one of them will be annoying, for sure. Certainly manageable once they get all the rules down, but I imagine you'll need either some way to train the network by state (for example, you can't train it to do a U-Turn in Oregon with data of U-Turns in Texas, and vice-versa), or a framework of some kind to distinguish specific rules.

I didn't see any mention of what settings they used for the lane change in e CR report.The "madmax" lane change is quite aggressive & probably useful in LA trafficMine is set to the lowest & if anything I find the car to be really cautious when changing lanesI've actually had the car attempt a lane change & then pull back as the car behind me 10 lengths back in the adjacent lane, just decided to speed up drastically. 405N freeway

The braking is aggressive if regen is set to standard, ie the car slows down much fasterIf regen is set to low, it coasts a bit

Perhaps the author would like to get more detail on the tests & settings ?

I'm interested in this as I own a model 3 & would like more information

Note:This is NOT defending Tesla or CR. I'm interested in this from a technical perspective, so more information is always good to have.

No passing on the right laws need updated to reflect reality. Instead of it being considered bad to pass on the right, it should be that if you are passed on the right by a driver obeying all other traffic regulations, you are subject to ticketing. No one driving correctly gets passed on the right by vehicles obeying all other traffic regulations.

Do you actually drive?

I was passed on the right just this morning while doing a bit over 70 mph on a 70 mph freeway, two lanes wide open on my right, by some law-abiding, quality driver doing at least 85. This is an extremely common occurrence; to be generous, it seems that a large portion of drivers simply don't know there are right and wrong sides to pass on.

That raises the question of why were you in the left lane? It doesn't sound like you were passing since as you say the right two lanes were "wide open". I don't think you were preparing for a left turn since as you say this was on a freeway. Most if not all states require drivers to keep to the right except for those two circumstances. If you find getting passed on the right is a "common" occurrence then perhaps you should brush up on your driving skills and stop hanging out in the left lane illegally?

I test-drove a Model S in heavy traffic and experienced all of this. I honestly found autopilot to be extremely stressful to use. Granted I only had about 45 minutes behind the wheel, but it was not a pleasant 45 minutes. Even the part that I'd consider "easy", lane-centering, was accomplished through constant micro-corrections that were far less smooth than if I'd been centering the car myself.

How long ago was your test drive? It's gotten a lot smoother over the last year or two both laterally and longitudinally.

"But if Autopilot struggles to handle lane changes as well as a human driver, it may be premature to roll out additional capabilities."

Hell, it was obviously premature to roll out this incapability.

"This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it." It's time for the feds to step in and impose regulatory requirements regarding validation of new 'driver assistance' features before they're released.

No passing on the right laws need updated to reflect reality. Instead of it being considered bad to pass on the right, it should be that if you are passed on the right by a driver obeying all other traffic regulations, you are subject to ticketing. No one driving correctly gets passed on the right by vehicles obeying all other traffic regulations.

Do you actually drive?

I was passed on the right just this morning while doing a bit over 70 mph on a 70 mph freeway, two lanes wide open on my right, by some law-abiding, quality driver doing at least 85. This is an extremely common occurrence; to be generous, it seems that a large portion of drivers simply don't know there are right and wrong sides to pass on.

That raises the question of why were you in the left lane? It doesn't sound like you were passing since as you say the right two lanes were "wide open". I don't think you were preparing for a left turn since as you say this was on a freeway. Most if not all states require drivers to keep to the right except for those two circumstances. If you find getting passed on the right is a "common" occurrence then perhaps you should brush up on your driving skills and stop hanging out in the left lane illegally?

I wasn't in the left lane. Read my post before replying.

Your post says that there were 2 wide open lanes on your right. We can only assume you were in the left lane. Now you may have meant that the open lanes were your left, but that's not what's written.

No passing on the right laws need updated to reflect reality. Instead of it being considered bad to pass on the right, it should be that if you are passed on the right by a driver obeying all other traffic regulations, you are subject to ticketing. No one driving correctly gets passed on the right by vehicles obeying all other traffic regulations.

Do you actually drive?

I was passed on the right just this morning while doing a bit over 70 mph on a 70 mph freeway, two lanes wide open on my right, by some law-abiding, quality driver doing at least 85. This is an extremely common occurrence; to be generous, it seems that a large portion of drivers simply don't know there are right and wrong sides to pass on.

In Britain, passing on the correct side (the left, here in the US) is called "overtaking," while passing on the other side (the right) is known, hilariously and not wrongly, as "undertaking."

The vast majority of passing on the right happens because people love to sit in the left lane and tune out the rest of the world.

It happens to me when I'm keeping pace with the cars in front of me and someone behind me decides that I'm somehow going too slow. So they wait for a gap in the slower right hand lane and do a crazy slalom maneuver around me which has the effect that they're in front of me going the exact same speed they were before and everyone behind them was slowed down at least a little bit if not to the point of having to brake.

Shout out to the Everett Turnpike in New Hampshire where no one ever changes how they drive even though it ends up causing a traffic jam every single day. People, if you quickly pull up to the car in front of you and have to brake then you're causing a traffic wave behind you. Just drive slower so that you can keep moving!

This is a perfectly normal stage in the development of a new technology. It is NOT, however, the stage at which you start entrusting life-or-death decisions to it. I'm baffled that Tesla thinks the concept of Open Beta (or is it Open Alpha?) is a good idea for vehicle autonomy.

By the way, even "Adaptive Cruise Control", which is broadly available across vehicles, can cause issues. This is particularly noticeable where, for example, semis have a 55mph limit and cars have a 65mph limit. I'll be approaching a semi from the rear and, right before I switch lanes to pass, my adaptive cruise control decides that I'm getting too close and slams on the brakes.

This of course unsettles the car immediately before the lane change, not to mention pisses off the 65mph traffic in the lane I'm pulling into.

It's a great feature when following traffic to avoid the "I'm driving 65.5 MPH and the person I'm following is driving 65 MPH". But I've learned that you really need to disable it if you anticipate any lane changes.

Autonomous driving will improve somewhat someday with the introduction of lidar, which is quantitative (a whole scene of precise 3D data for software to grasp onto) and far-seeing (up to 300 meters). Unfortunately, Elon Musk does not believe in lidar.

No passing on the right laws need updated to reflect reality. Instead of it being considered bad to pass on the right, it should be that if you are passed on the right by a driver obeying all other traffic regulations, you are subject to ticketing. No one driving correctly gets passed on the right by vehicles obeying all other traffic regulations.

Do you actually drive?

I was passed on the right just this morning while doing a bit over 70 mph on a 70 mph freeway, two lanes wide open on my right, by some law-abiding, quality driver doing at least 85. This is an extremely common occurrence; to be generous, it seems that a large portion of drivers simply don't know there are right and wrong sides to pass on.

That raises the question of why were you in the left lane? It doesn't sound like you were passing since as you say the right two lanes were "wide open". I don't think you were preparing for a left turn since as you say this was on a freeway. Most if not all states require drivers to keep to the right except for those two circumstances. If you find getting passed on the right is a "common" occurrence then perhaps you should brush up on your driving skills and stop hanging out in the left lane illegally?

I wasn't in the left lane. Read my post before replying.

All my points stand whether you were in the left most lane or not. And really? You think I didn't read you post despite actually quoting from it? And where does it say you weren't in the left lane? I did miss that part.

No passing on the right laws need updated to reflect reality. Instead of it being considered bad to pass on the right, it should be that if you are passed on the right by a driver obeying all other traffic regulations, you are subject to ticketing. No one driving correctly gets passed on the right by vehicles obeying all other traffic regulations.

Do you actually drive?

I was passed on the right just this morning while doing a bit over 70 mph on a 70 mph freeway, two lanes wide open on my right, by some law-abiding, quality driver doing at least 85. This is an extremely common occurrence; to be generous, it seems that a large portion of drivers simply don't know there are right and wrong sides to pass on.

That raises the question of why were you in the left lane? It doesn't sound like you were passing since as you say the right two lanes were "wide open". I don't think you were preparing for a left turn since as you say this was on a freeway. Most if not all states require drivers to keep to the right except for those two circumstances. If you find getting passed on the right is a "common" occurrence then perhaps you should brush up on your driving skills and stop hanging out in the left lane illegally?

I test-drove a Model S in heavy traffic and experienced all of this. I honestly found autopilot to be extremely stressful to use. Granted I only had about 45 minutes behind the wheel, but it was not a pleasant 45 minutes. Even the part that I'd consider "easy", lane-centering, was accomplished through constant micro-corrections that were far less smooth than if I'd been centering the car myself.

I'm sympathetic to the problem they're facing, by the way. There are an extremely large number of constantly changing data, and humans can rely on their own intuition. I've never believed the "truck drivers will be obsolete in 5 years" baloney, and this is exactly why. Driving laws are subtle and different between every state. Lane markings are unpredictable and sometimes non-existent. Absent laws that are designed specifically around EVs and a huge public works project to make highways EV friendly (which needn't necessarily be lane markings), I just don't see this happening.

I worry that the desire to have "autopilot" in other cars will stifle innovation in the EV market. A new car manufacturer (Rivian, whatever) should be content with building an EV that drives well without spending resources on "autopilot"-like capabilities. It's an extremely hard problem, let Google or another company with unlimited resources tackle it.

The model S is built like a tank with a superb air suspension. It was one of the smoothest rides I've experienced apart from a bmw 750

Were you testing on a street or on a highway/freeway ?The system is designed for freeway use. When I first test drove it on the 5 freeway, there was a natural tendency to try to grab the wheel, just like if you use follow me cruise control on any other car & get squeamish as it approaches another car.

It took some time for me, as an owner to get used to the system and trust it & learn its limitations & use it effectively. It is absolutely superb for heavy stop & go traffic on a freewaywhich is usually the morning commute for most people

"This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it." It's time for the feds to step in and impose regulatory requirements regarding validation of new 'driver assistance' features before they're released.

It's shocking to me that such requirements don't exist already (although I'd expect them at a state level, not a federal one).

At least in theory, we test each human driver before we declare that they are able to operate a vehicle to within acceptable tolerance of the laws and behaviors governing public roads. And we don't do that with each new version of self-driving software? Why the hell not?

No passing on the right laws need updated to reflect reality. Instead of it being considered bad to pass on the right, it should be that if you are passed on the right by a driver obeying all other traffic regulations, you are subject to ticketing. No one driving correctly gets passed on the right by vehicles obeying all other traffic regulations.

Do you actually drive?

I was passed on the right just this morning while doing a bit over 70 mph on a 70 mph freeway, two lanes wide open on my right, by some law-abiding, quality driver doing at least 85. This is an extremely common occurrence; to be generous, it seems that a large portion of drivers simply don't know there are right and wrong sides to pass on.

In Britain, passing on the correct side (the left, here in the US) is called "overtaking," while passing on the other side (the right) is known, hilariously and not wrongly, as "undertaking."

2 open lanes on your right, so 6 lane highway. This was passing on the right on a 2 lane highway, meaning it sounds like the car moved into the shoulder to pass the person ahead of them.

Another challenge Tesla will face as it rolls out more sophisticated capabilities is laws that vary by country, state, or even municipality.

This is definitely true. When I moved from Texas to Oregon, I found out that the U-Turn laws are almost completely opposite (you can't U-Turn at a light in Oregon unless explicitly permitted; Texas being the opposite). That's just a single rule for a relatively common maneuver. Getting down every single one of them will be annoying, for sure. Certainly manageable once they get all the rules down, but I imagine you'll need either some way to train the network by state (for example, you can't train it to do a U-Turn in Oregon with data of U-Turns in Texas, and vice-versa), or a framework of some kind to distinguish specific rules.

This actually seems like one of the easier problems to solve...you have GPS, you know what state you're in. Simply have it look up the "u-turn allowed" rules and either enable or prohibit the subroutine for a U-turn based on the result. The only hard part is recognizing the signage in the respective states allowing or disallowing at that specific intersection.

Most traffic rules would be similar, for instance turning left-on-red onto a one-way street. Allowed some places, not in others. Simple look-up table, and enable or disable the maneuver based on GPS location. Writing the logic for the rules of the road, is, I'd imagine, an order of magnitude easier than writing the logic to actually perform the maneuvers safely.

This doesn't address the readiness of automatic lane changing or other features, but it seems to me that with the proper support by the vendor (Tesla in this case) the problem of differing rules of driving in different jurisdictions is actually more amenable to an automated solution than to a human one. One isn't likely to stop and take careful note of the differences in rules when driving across a state line, but the car and the supporting network should already be aware of them. It's analogous to Intuit (or whoever) tracking changes in the rules in the many taxing jurisdictions.

"This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it." It's time for the feds to step in and impose regulatory requirements regarding validation of new 'driver assistance' features before they're released.

It's shocking to me that such requirements don't exist already (although I'd expect them at a state level, not a federal one).

At least in theory, we test each human driver before we declare that they are able to operate a vehicle to within acceptable tolerance of the laws and behaviors governing public roads. And we don't do that with each new version of self-driving software? Why the hell not?

Sounds expensive. Better to just let your victims test it and blame then when it fucks up. Mmm, love the smell of innovation in the morning. Wait, no, that's just a lithium battery fire.

Tesla vehicles have a tendency to cut off other drivers when making lane changes, according to CR's tests. After changing lanes in heavy traffic, the Model 3 "often immediately applies the brakes to create space behind the follow car—this can be a rude surprise to the vehicle you cut off,” Fisher said.

Sure to be a controversial response, but I don't see what's wrong here. The better question is why is the car you "cut off" still accelerating or closing the gap onto the follow car? If the car you "cut off" was maintaining a safe two-second following distance, there should be plenty of space for you to merge into, and plenty of time for them to respond to that merge.

More likely, in my experience, the follow car was either doing the usual on the freeway, which is to go as fast as they can until they're a car length from the bumper ahead...or worse, they saw the signal and attempted to close the gap and block the merge. Either way, they're the problem.

Provided the Tesla is applying light braking or deceleration, and not straight brake-checking, that is.

EDIT: Don't worry guys, I understand that maintaining a safe following distance is hugely unpopular. I assume at least one of you will literally downvote me from three feet off my back bumper at some point today. Because texting-n-tailgating is a match made in heaven.

Considering how around here, only roughly 3% of drivers demonstrate basic competence at handling a vehicle, that's certaonly saying something.

The vast majority of drivers are perfectly adequate and competent for the task. There is a small group of extremely bad drivers who cause all the issues.

yes, it's those few bad apples that spoil the fun for everyone! once they gain notice of the political teams trying to make it 'safe for everyone'', the lawyers begin crafting yet another 'amendment' to our favorite pastime (being doing whatever we please whenever we want to) and as a result everyone looses. thus we all must sacrifice the freedoms as if the majority of the people were being a bunch af asses.

Tesla may be attempting to market their product to gain immediate share, at the risk of a few mishaps on the road. until a unified set of driving rules can be codified, this will only present another complex of interpreted sensory variations to consume processing power.

regardless, the responsible licenced driver of the vehicle should be held fully accountable for any mishap.